The music box grinds down to silent rest
Between a crone’s rheumatic, weathered hands.
A simple enough trinket, she'd attest,
But quick enough to answer her demands:
Her brittle fingers wait for it to cease,
Then seek the winding key, its battered brass
All lacquered in patina, thumbprint grease
And dusting left undone, its fragile glass
A testament to things left well alone,
A dancer wrought in crystal finery
Awaiting his accompaniment’s tone,
His patient poise the winder’s reverie...
Returned, rewound, to tabletop in time,
The music box begins, again, to chime.